Technology kicks away the career ladder

Employees who once climbed from shopfloor to boardroom are being kept in their place by the microchip

Here are some stories you do not hear every day: a shelf stacker in a supermarket ends up as the company director on a pay packet of £3m a year; a schoolboy working in an airline office becomes executive chairman of an international fleet; a trainee in a regional department store eventually takes over as chief executive.

These are the biographies of Sir Terry Leahy, Sir Michael Bishop and Stuart Rose. And they have more in common than an astonishing rise from shop floor to corporate stratosphere: their successes were partly predicated on making good use of changing technology.

Tesco’s and Marks & Spencer’s core businesses have been revolutionised by automated stock systems and online ordering, and aviation has been transformed by computerised navigation and booking. But the irony is that the very technology that helped these three to succeed may be preventing others from following in their footsteps.